Transistor Amplifiers...a few questions

[chid]

Hi guys,

I've read a lot about transistor amplifiers (we haven't actually covered them at school yet) but I still have a few difficulties:

Why does an increase in the base current cause a large change in the collector current? (something to do with npn junctions but I'm not sure exactly what!)

Is Vout just an AC voltage or a combination of AC and DC? (I'm getting confused with them using peak to peak sometimes... I think)

Why do they often talk about the device being 'disconnected' and then a 20 mV input signal is used?

And finally is the currrent gain similar to the voltage gain... or not?


I think I understand the quantitative side to these questions (Mao's notes are really helpful) but I feel like I don't really understand what is actually happening.


Thanks in advance. 

[Mao]

i'm not exactly sure about the first question, but I do know that we dont need to know it.


for your second question, V_out can be a combination of both (usually is), unless a capacitor is placed somewhere there (there's two positions to put it) which decouples it to only AC
peak-to-peak refers to twice the amplitude of the AC component. its basically or can be written as

"disconnected" just refer to 0V from V_in, or basically just 0.7V going into V_b

and current gain is the current amplification, it depends on the transistor itself, it is . Since I_CE is practically I_C, and I_BE is practically I_B, a current gain of 100 means an I_b of will be amplified to at R_C
Voltage gain depends on the circuit configuration and the current gain, where
they are kind of related.... based on similar principles, but very different things.

[chid]

Thanks Mao. Much appreciated.

[Collin Li]

Why does an increase in the base current cause a large change in the collector current? (something to do with npn junctions but I'm not sure exactly what!)

You do not need to know about the operation of npn-junctions, or p-n junctions. However, to not really answer your question technically, it is helpful just to think of a base current as an input energy to open a tap. If you have more base current, you can turn the tap more, and allow more collector current to flow through. This is why a variation in the base current causes a variation in the collector current (an amplified one)